


Body Gold

by Bounteous



Series: Oh, How Often I Wonder [2]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Okumura Eiji Needs a Hug, Post-Canon, Sad, Sad Okumura Eiji, title is an Oh Wonder song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 15:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30074409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bounteous/pseuds/Bounteous
Summary: Ibe should have never brought Eiji to America. Eiji thinks differently.
Relationships: Past Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Series: Oh, How Often I Wonder [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193408
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	Body Gold

Eiji sits in his new apartment with stale air and a thousand new sounds to get used to. He likens the boxes to stepping stones in sand gardens. They pave a path he is too afraid to walk. Will it still feel lonely even after he unpacks? The answer is a frightening thought, a  _ what if  _ he can’t stop reciting like a sad ballad.

One of them is labeled TEA and he shuffles through the kitchen to find it. While it boils, he shuffles around again to find the one labeled MUGS. It dawns on him how utterly peculiar it must be to drink as much tea as he to need two separate boxes. Then he tears up because he’d thought the word ‘dawn’ and memories come crashing through like a tsunami. 

Ibe enters later to find him sipping at tepid jasmine through hiccups and streams. Stunted, he can only manage a horribly sympathetic, “Oh, Ei-chan…” that borders on patronizing. It’s been years and he’s exhausted all efforts. It’s been years and Eiji is as inconsolable as the day they’d returned to Japan. 

His worries are inconsistent; they fluctuate in intensity because Eiji wears his heart on his sleeve. Ibe worries a little when Eiji’s smiles fall away after a polite conversation. Ibe worries a lot when Eiji insists with a terseness unlike him that he is doing better. 

He was concernedly surprised to hear of Eiji’s sudden desire to move to New York.

After a hefty exchange in which Eiji drank far too much of his mentor’s alcohol, Ibe learned it actually wasn’t so sudden. 

He wonders if Eiji ever truly felt at home in Izumo again after the events all those years ago. Or if the pull back to his first love and heartbreak was simply too strong, too damaging to deal with any longer. 

He always thinks he never should have brought him to New York.

Perhaps his photography wouldn’t be so somber and melancholy. Perhaps he’d be studying at university in Tokyo. Perhaps the rift between him and his family wouldn’t be so wide, so jagged. Perhaps his depression could be easier to manage—one medication for one indicator rather than multiple prescriptions at the end of twisting, turning, curving lines from all directions. 

Ibe blames himself for putting the poor boy through such trauma.

Eiji is aware, but he won’t say anything until Ibe brings it up. He doesn’t talk much. Only when prompted. Only when his lungs squeeze so hard that the words are released as gasps and chokes and hoarse whispers. Even then, it’s usually to himself. In a cracked mirror, a cracked phone screen, a cracked camera lens. A smeared, blurry, vacillating window reflection.

He used to talk to a ghost, so he thinks he’s gotten better. 

Today, he talks to himself blinking back in dark tea with ripples from his trembling. Then Ibe-san enters and says his name, all fragile-like, and the liquid sloshes over the side in his shock. 

Right. The man had been helping him move. He forgets things easily now. Sometimes, those things seem wholly important in the grand scheme of life. That deciding with the head seems stupidly cautious when the heart always feels what’s best. Eiji doesn’t know what he expects to feel now, but he hopes it’s something akin to hope or peace or contentment. Restless in all facets has burned him out. 

Maybe this apartment nearing the top floor will make him fly again. Or give him the perception, at least, when he leans his sinewy limbs over the fire escape for a moment of reprieve. 

“Are you sure about living here?” Ibe-san asks, deep voice reverberating like a father’s. 

Eiji can hear the questions he doesn’t ask like unwanted echoes. He used to think Ash was an exception. That his uncanny ability to discern the complexities within the boy was a testament to their compatibility and connection. He realizes more and more that he might just be incredibly intuitive. 

Eiji replies with a voice softer than down, “It will be good for me. It’s what I was missing.”

Ibe sits down on the arm of the couch, one leg out to anchor himself. Eiji’s silhouette is cast onto the wood floor from where he leans against the window in a seat cushioned with old, knitted blankets from a home no longer a home. He can’t help but think the kid is purposefully hurting himself.

“Look,” he starts, then coughs because he isn’t quite sure how to finish, “I know you miss it, but it’s probably bringing up a lot of bad memories and I don’t think—”

Eiji can’t find it in himself to be angry with Ibe-san’s reasoning. It’s frustrating for him for the man to assume Eiji’s feelings and thoughts for him, but Ibe is the reason he ever came to New York in the first place. It makes sense for him to place the blame on himself. However, the blame dissipated with the lingering regret and guilt long ago.

“They aren’t bad memories,” he interrupts calmly, tracing a finger along the glass he leans against. “They’re good memories. They make me cry, yes, but they’re good.”

Everything reminds him of blond hair and jade eyes, but Eiji can focus on the present easier these days. He ate dinner with Sing the night before and had fun. Met up with Kong and Bones and Alex and had fun. Saw Cain in passing and had fun. The old him would have wallowed in the past until he could only guzzle in water with frantic bubbles and a tightening chest. He has gotten better. His disposition has become more solemn than naive, but the thoughts of flying just to fall no longer seize his every waking moment. 

“Ei-chan…”

Perhaps Ibe will never understand.

“I loved him.” He frowns, upset with his tense. “I love him,” he corrects, “and I wouldn’t choose to have never known him.”

_ I am sorry,  _ Ibe thinks because young, tumultuous love is a thing he never got to experience. 

_ Don’t be,  _ Eiji thinks because Ash gave him more than a soul and a heart to heal. 

**Author's Note:**

> Support my ko-fi if you enjoyed my writing! https://ko-fi.com/bounteous


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